Greek Island of Kos, Overwhelmed With Migrants, Tries to Move Them Along

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Migrant women and children on the Greek island of Kos on Thursday after arriving by sea from Turkey. Most migrants make the crossing by night in small boats.CreditAngelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

KOS, Greece — The Greek government moved on Thursday to speed up the evacuation of Syrians and other migrants who have overwhelmed the picturesque harbor of this southeastern Aegean island in recent days.

Hundreds of migrants lined up outside the island’s police headquarters and outside a stadium as officials tried to register them so they could move on. Officials said that many migrants had left the island by passenger ship, arriving in Piraeus in the early hours of Thursday, and that more would follow. But hundreds continue to arrive every day, they said.

George Kiritsis, the mayor of Kos, acknowledged at an impromptu news conference Thursday that there had been a brief flare-up of unrest recently among the migrants, but denied that they had been purposely locked in a stadium. He said that as hundreds of people crowded around the stadium to register for permits to travel in Greece, mothers with small children had become endangered, and the police had used fire extinguishers to control the crowd.

“What I know is that the stadium is being used so that all those people can stay in one line, so that we can determine when they came, from what country they came,” Mr. Kiritsis told reporters who had gathered in the harbor.

“They did not go in there to be locked up, and if you look now, you’ll see that they get in a line, and yesterday was the same,” he said. “If someone else sees it differently, I don’t.”

Aid workers estimate that there are 6,000 to 7,000 refugees and migrants from countries like Syria staying on Kos, the equivalent of about 20 percent of the island’s normal population. Most of them made the short trip from Turkey, whose coastline is clearly visible across the harbor, by rubber dinghy in the middle of the night.

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Thousands of migrants came ashore this summer on the Greek island of Lesbos, a popular tourist destination. Some of them had to walk more than 40 miles to get to the main port of Mytilene.Published OnJuly 10, 2015CreditImage by Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Many of them are now camped under palm trees and in the grass of the promenade that lines the main harbor. They hang their clothes on the fences, and some sleep in tents they have purchased. Those who can afford it go to cafes to buy food and to use the bathrooms. In a striking juxtaposition, tourists cycle past on bike paths or sit in cafes overlooking the migrant encampments and the sparkling blue water beyond.

Mr. Kiritsis said that Kos had welcomed and cared for the migrants, despite Greece’s economic problems, and that at least so far, tourists seemed to be taking their presence in stride.

“I want to give you the message that the society of Kos is a society of love and solidarity,” he said. “There are people who receive free food every day. There are establishments — restaurants, hotels — that provide hospitality to people who have problems, who don’t have money, without charge.”

A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders said Wednesday that people had been herded into the stadium and locked up there without food, water or toilets.

Some migrants interviewed Thursday said they had been among those shut in the stadium. They said that some men had been able to jump over the walls and bring back food and water, but that women and children had been stuck inside.

The scene outside the stadium on Thursday was peaceful but still somewhat tense as migrants, mainly men, lined up in the hot sun to be registered. One of them, Elie Alnasser, a chef who had been living in Lebanon, said he had arrived in Kos several days earlier and had been paying 35 euros a night, about $39, for a hotel room while he waited for papers that would allow him to move on.

Mr. Alnasser said he hoped to find his way to Sweden or the Netherlands. “I like France a lot,” he said in broken French. “But I think they don’t allow Syrians.”

Mr. Kiritsis, the mayor, said he expected a ship to arrive from the mainland on Friday that could be used to house and feed about 3,000 of the refugees and migrants so they would no longer have to camp outside.

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A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Migrant Tide of Syria War Overwhelms Greek Island. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe